Variable state manipulation is a very important aspect of debugging software. Testers often need to compare variable states of instances associated with a segment of code in order to understand how changes in the segment of code affect the variable states. Being able to replace variable states with previously achieved variable states is also valuable as it allows the tester to control his environment where variable states may be randomized or otherwise inconsistent. Some development environments allow the tester to accomplish these tasks by writing additional code segments which save, replace and compare variable states, or by calling command line functions. Other environments allow copy, cut and paste actions on a list of current variable states. The concept of saving variable states requires the tester to copy the variable states from the development environment and paste them into a word processor, or record them on paper. However, these methods are tedious and inefficient, and in some cases require an intimate familiarity with the development environment to be used correctly.
In view of the foregoing, it would be advantageous to provide a system which allows the user to save, replace and compare variable states quickly and intuitively.